Do you ever give up all your copyrights in case of a wedding as a photographer?My clients want me to agree to the following terms below. What do you think? Any drawbacks?

Intellectual Property Rights – WORK FOR HIREThe parties agree that the Services are WORK MADE FOR HIRE as that term is customarily used.All artistic, literary, and other material submitted by Service Provider, together with the results and proceeds of the services, in connection with this agreement (the "Material") was specially commissioned by Buyer, as a work made for hire. Accordingly, Buyer is the author and owner of the Material and entitled to the copyrights (and all extensions and renewals of copyrights) in the Material, with the right to use and change the Material in any manner that Buyer may determine. If any of the material is determined not to be a work made for hire, Service Provider hereby assigns to Buyer in perpetuity all rights, including all copyrights, renewals and extensions, to the Material. The forgoing extends to all Materials created by Service Provider but not provided to Buyer, such as but not limited to any pictures that were taken of Buyer or Buyer’s event and kept by Service Provider digitally or in any other format.Service Provider hereby irrevocably waives the benefits of any provision of law known as "droit moral," "moral rights" or any similar rights or principals of law in any country of the world which you may now or later have in the Material, and agree not to institute or permit any action or lawsuit on the ground that the Project or any other production based upon the Material constitutes an infringement of any of your droit moral or is in any way a defamation or mutilation of the Material or any part thereof, or contains unauthorized variations, alterations, modifications, changes or translations.

Service Provider may not use the Material in any manner without express, clear written consent to do so specifically in each instance by the Buyer.

I don't do weddings, but if I did, I would consent to such a contract only under two additional conditions:1. A surcharge of at least $5000 would be added to my usual fee, and2. I would reserve the right to use any of the resulting images in perpetuity in any other way I wanted (such as for advertising, promotions, exhibitions, or print sales).

If I were a big name in the field, my first item above would be raised to more like $50,000.

I don't do weddings, but if I did, I would consent to such a contract only under two additional conditions:1. A surcharge of at least $5000 would be added to my usual fee, and2. I would reserve the right to use any of the resulting images in perpetuity in any other way I wanted (such as for advertising, promotions, exhibitions, or print sales).

If I were a big name in the field, my first item above would be raised to more like $50,000.

Good luck.

Eric

As I understand the term, what Eric describes is not work for hire, which, I believe, does not permit the conditions he specifies.

Do you ever give up all your copyrights in case of a wedding as a photographer?My clients want me to agree to the following terms below. What do you think? Any drawbacks?

Intellectual Property Rights – WORK FOR HIREService Provider may not use the Material in any manner without express, clear written consent to do so specifically in each instance by the Buyer.

I'll play devils advocate here. Why wouldn't you sign? Unless this is a celeb wedding where selling to the media is an option, how much extra can someone getting from selling someone elses wedding pix? The stock image market is flooded so that's a deadend.

Honestly, some of the responses come across as a knee jerk response to a perceived slight. Sure, my first reaction was WTF, but after thought about it, I couldn't see any reason not too. I'd sure be curious about why the happy couple got a laywer to put this together. I don't do wedding although I do get asked. I just don't see any value in hanging on to images in the hope that the grand kids will want copies in 20 or 30 years.So please enlighten me,

Not a wedding photographer. I have signed work for hire agreements. I was not sure if your client was a couple getting married or a studio you might be working for.

My experience: I signed one with a client for the reason mentioned earlier. I saw that the images would have no resale value to me or even my client in two to three years. Its pictures of fashion products which rotate through their catalog. I have right to use any image for promotion or advertising. In the meantime I have billed quite a bit of money shooting for them.

So what kind of value to you expect the images to have? Why? Who are your potential clients for the images outside of the one you have now. Do you want the money? Can you charge them some more if you sign it. Are they going to walk if you don't?

Not a wedding photographer. I have signed work for hire agreements. I was not sure if your client was a couple getting married or a studio you might be working for.

My experience: I signed one with a client for the reason mentioned earlier. I saw that the images would have no resale value to me or even my client in two to three years. Its pictures of fashion products which rotate through their catalog. I have right to use any image for promotion or advertising. In the meantime I have billed quite a bit of money shooting for them.

So what kind of value to you expect the images to have? Why? Who are your potential clients for the images outside of the one you have now. Do you want the money? Can you charge them some more if you sign it. Are they going to walk if you don't?

Regardless of whether the photos have any value for relicensing, I don't think that any photographer capable of producing respectable professional work should easily give up the right to at least use the photos in his or her own marketing material, which work for hire would preclude. If you aren't going to try to create portfolio-quality images of such an important event in the lives of your clients, why are you even bothering to take the job?

By the way, have you looked at the OP's portfolio? A quick browse indicates that his work is of quite high quality, and I think he should indeed charge a very substantial premium for work for hire.

Lets not get personal I do respect myself and what I do and others as well. I invest considerable amount of my free time educating people about image usage and artist rights.

I try not to make emotional decision in business. I am in business to make money period. In my case when I signed the agreement I made a substantial amount of money for me. If your self respect prevents you from doing that its your choice.

Ultimately my post was offering my experience. Correct me if I am wrong but that is what was requested from the poster. I will not apologize if it was a positive one for me financially. My question were rational business ones I believe. Make good business decisions not bad emotional ones.

Whoever came up with that language is either an attorney who deals with copyright, or is in motion picture / television / entertainment / music industry or advertising business and has either lifted that language or had their attorney insert it in your contact. Either way someone either wants to maintain their privacy or thinks they can license the photos to the celebrity press.

Have you had your attorney look at it? Since this is very specific legal language you should. And then you will have to make the decision as to what you are willing to ask for in return.

So this would mean you now charge him totally differently - and that would all need to be agreed and sign-off before you did any work.

As in:-An agreed hourly amount, for every hour he wants you to work on this job for him, form start to finish. Plus any & all equipment he wants you to use (which would include computers, cameras, lenses, lights, stands, tripods, software, etc, etc) - would obviously either need to be supplied by him or hired out for the period and charged to him.Plus any & all other expenses which you may occur, such a cars, fuel, food, etc, etc would also need to be paid for too.

Just the same as if you hired or employed someone to work for you - because this is all the stuff that they would expect you to either pay for or supply them with.

So this would mean you now charge him totally differently - and that would all need to be agreed and sign-off before you did any work.

As in:-An agreed hourly amount, for every hour he wants you to work on this job for him, form start to finish. Plus any & all equipment he wants you to use (which would include computers, cameras, lenses, lights, stands, tripods, software, etc, etc) - would obviously either need to be supplied by him or hired out for the period and charged to him.Plus any & all other expenses which you may occur, such a cars, fuel, food, etc, etc would also need to be paid for too.

Just the same as if you hired or employed someone to work for you - because this is all the stuff that they would expect you to either pay for or supply them with.

From the contract language the OP cited: "The parties agree that the Services are WORK MADE FOR HIRE as that term is customarily used."

I guess Ashley is right in principal. The OP would still be functioning in his customary role as an independent contractor (not a part of the customary definition of work for hire), whereas "work for hire" involves all of the things Ashley describes. So, I guess that the proper description of the terms for rights transfer would be a buyout of the copyright, which nevertheless would seem to achieve the same goals in the end, as long as the fee is appropriate to compensate the photographer for the usage and expenses involved. Since the OP is capable of providing high-quality work, and assuming that it is his goal to consistently provide this quality to his clients, I would assume that the quality of the images he would deliver to this client-and the amount of time and expense required to achieve that quality-would be similar to that for any other of his jobs.

Do you ever give up all your copyrights in case of a wedding as a photographer?My clients want me to agree to the following terms below. What do you think? Any drawbacks?

Intellectual Property Rights – WORK FOR HIREThe parties agree that the Services are WORK MADE FOR HIRE as that term is customarily used.All artistic, literary, and other material submitted by Service Provider, together with the results and proceeds of the services, in connection with this agreement (the "Material") was specially commissioned by Buyer, as a work made for hire. Accordingly, Buyer is the author and owner of the Material and entitled to the copyrights (and all extensions and renewals of copyrights) in the Material, with the right to use and change the Material in any manner that Buyer may determine. If any of the material is determined not to be a work made for hire, Service Provider hereby assigns to Buyer in perpetuity all rights, including all copyrights, renewals and extensions, to the Material. The forgoing extends to all Materials created by Service Provider but not provided to Buyer, such as but not limited to any pictures that were taken of Buyer or Buyer’s event and kept by Service Provider digitally or in any other format.Service Provider hereby irrevocably waives the benefits of any provision of law known as "droit moral," "moral rights" or any similar rights or principals of law in any country of the world which you may now or later have in the Material, and agree not to institute or permit any action or lawsuit on the ground that the Project or any other production based upon the Material constitutes an infringement of any of your droit moral or is in any way a defamation or mutilation of the Material or any part thereof, or contains unauthorized variations, alterations, modifications, changes or translations.

Service Provider may not use the Material in any manner without express, clear written consent to do so specifically in each instance by the Buyer.

I just don't know why you would sign something that will make your client the photographer..... "Buyer is the author"

You are asking if there are any drawbacks. But I ask are there any benefits? When you are employed by a company, that company provides you a wage, equipment, training, liability insurance, unemployment insurance, workers comp, etc.. If you drop the camera on a customers toe, your employer pays to replace the camera, pays to replace the customers toe, and through the whole process you are still paid your wage. In exchange for this, because you are the employee, the company owns the copyright and is the "creator" of the work.

When you sign a "work for hire" agreement for a client who is commissioning your photography service you are giving them all the benefits of you being an employee and absolutely none of the liability.

You might as well sign an agreement that states "The commissioning party will have their cake and eat it to." You're running a company. You have liability insurance in case a light falls on a guest. You have workers comp for you assistants. You have a business license. You collect sale tax. Why would you turn around and act like their employee when you are clearly running a company?

Why would you turn around and act like their employee when you are clearly running a company?

You do this when the customer is paying you enough money to cover your liability insurance, to cover equipment insurance, to pay your overhead, to pay your insurance etc. The price has to be high enough to offset all of these type things.

I know that there is an amount of money that would convince everyone reading this to agree to a work for hire contract: $500? $5,000? $50,000? etc.

You do this when the customer is paying you enough money to cover your liability insurance, to cover equipment insurance, to pay your overhead, to pay your insurance etc. The price has to be high enough to offset all of these type things.

I know that there is an amount of money that would convince everyone reading this to agree to a work for hire contract: $500? $5,000? $50,000? etc.

In theory, of course... but all the work for hire contracts I've ever seen come from lower budget clients. They ask for work for hire because they cannot afford any additional licensing fees.

In theory, of course... but all the work for hire contracts I've ever seen come from lower budget clients. They ask for work for hire because they cannot afford any additional licensing fees.

I understand and agree. The bottom line is about affordability. Can the client afford to hire the photographer, and can the photographer afford to work for the client? These are individual decisions that have to be made by each party. The deal has to fit both budgets: client and photographer. The original post was concerning a wedding contract. When I was actively shooting weddings, I had my own contract that the client had to sign. I never had a client bring their own contract. If they did, I still would do it if the amount of money they brought with it made me want to do the job under their terms. If I felt bad about it, I would decline.

NO, Never, ever. I created it, I own it. I will allow full, exclusive use, forever in some cases, but never work for hire, never give away the copyright. Those who do, I'm sorry to say, don't value their own creativity as much as they value the brief happiness they receive from getting the gig, getting paid, and someone approving of you. Get over it. If you are a professional you're confident enough to not work with those who want to bully the rights out of you. When photographers give away the copyright to their creations they are undermining the market for everyone. Hard line, yes, but I've been making a good living at this for over 25 years and have resisted the quick feel good and done the hard work of educating my clients when need-be and walking away from them when need-be.

I give away copyright all the time. You have to with certain ad agencies, as they're anal about protecting their asses.

Just make sure you adjust your rates accordingly, retain the right to use the work for your portfolio, and there's no reason to even have the copyright.

So, do you draw up a legal contract and receive signed and witnessed copies of that contract that says that you can use the work for your portfolio or self-promotion? If you "give away" copyright, or if you sell it, either way you DO NOT have the right to use the images in self promotion, period. Even if you state that you do, and they say that you do, they own the copyright and you are in violation of that, no ifs ands or buts about it unless you have something very legal that states that you do. Simply putting that on your invoice or even them putting it on their PO is not enough, I can assure you. I know of two young shooters who have learned this the hard way, one of whom had to pay over $2500 to have an image removed from THE WORKBOOK kand replace with another at the last minute because the client discovered that she was going to use "their" image in her Directory Ad, even though it had stated on her invoice and on their PO that she could use the images in portfolio and self-promotion. The client later stated "Oh, we didn't know that you were going to publish them!" Once you've given away your copyright you have transferred a valuable asset to them. The matter is not whether or not you feel that you could re-sell the images. That's where a whole bunch of photographers get stuck and end up giving away the farm in order to please the client. It's of value to them, or they wouldn't want it so badly.

I know some of you will strongly disagree, or say "to each his own" and that is certainly true, but there have been a lot of folks in the Commercial photography world whining like crazy for the last ten years about the business dwindling down to nothing, and folks giving away the rights to their images just because they don't see the future value of them is a very big reason why. If you don't think they're valuable, then why should they?